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November, 2009

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In Line with Jive Turkey

The line begins outside Jive Turkey

The line begins outside Jive Turkey

Thanksgiving in Clinton Hill just wouldn’t be the same without the around-the-block lines to Jive Turkey, leading up to the big day. This has been my second year witnessing the massive lines down Myrtle Ave., smelling the scent of cooked turkey from blocks away and watching as employees work late into the night as they pack hundreds of boxes with fried turkeys to ship around the country. This morning as I walked by folks were sitting in folding chairs, drinking coffee out of thermoses and chatting as they waited to be let into the store to claim their order. I’ve never tasted fried turkey before, but it seems to be a force to be reckoned with.

The instigator of this local turkey craze is Jive Turkey owner Aricka Westbrooks who was the recipient of a business grant from Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation. Ms. Westbrooks used the funds to open the business.

To hear more about Restoration’s diverse work check out BHS’ oral history collection of over 50 interviews with founding Board members, supporters, activists, artists, tenants and other community members who helped shape the organization’s work over the years.

City of Memory: The Porto Rico Steamship Co.

City of Memory: Steamship Migration

City of Memory: Steamship Migration

Stories from BHS’s Puerto Rican Oral History Project, 1973 – 1975 are on the map!

City of Memory is an online collection of New York stories accessed through an interactive map and thematic tours and the Steamship Migration tour features audio and video from an event organized by BHS and Elena Martinez, staff folklorist with City Lore, in 2008.  This event featured audio selections from BHS’s Puerto Rican Oral History Project, 1973 – 1975, 69 interviews with people who migrated from Puerto Rico to Brooklyn 1917 – 1940, as well as a wonderful presentation by collector and steamship historian Ralph Mendez.  Click on the link at left to hear more.

Got cycling photos?

courtesy Eric Corriel

courtesy Eric Corriel

 

One of the artworks from the current group exhibit at BHS, Brooklyn Utopias, moves beyond the museum walls. Eric Corriel’s “A History of Cycling in Brooklyn,” an interactive public art installation explores the history of bicycle culture in Brooklyn from 1880 to today, through images and video projected in the windows of the Brooklyn Historical Society. It can be seen from Clinton (between Pierrepont and Montague Streets) in Brooklyn Heights, sundown to sunrise, according to this calendar. The artwork is interactive in the sense that anyone with Brooklyn-based cycling media is invited to submit content for possible inclusion in the piece itself. Read more about the piece here, and submit your photos and videos of cycling in Brooklyn!

Veterans Day – Free Admission

Tomorrow, November 11th, BHS will offer Free Admission to all Veterans and their Families in honor of Veteran’s Day.

Vietnam Veteran Anthony Wallace at the Brooklyn Historical Society; Image courtesy of nytimes.com

Vietnam Veteran Anthony Wallace at the Brooklyn Historical Society; Image courtesy of nytimes.com

Coney Island Carousel Carver

Image courtesy of the National Carousel Association

Image courtesy of the National Carousel Association

M.C. Illions (1872 – 1949) was one of the world’s greatest carousel carvers.  His beautifully painted horses with gold-leaf manes became a signature of Coney Island Style.

Marcus Charles Illions was born in Vilnius, Lithuania and he came to Coney Island in 1888 with the British animal showman Frank C. Bostock.  He worked with famed carousel carver Charles Looff until opening his own shop in 1909: M.C. Illions and Sons Carousell Works on Ocean Parkway and Neptune Avenue in Coney Island (across the street from where Lincoln High School now stands: 2789 Ocean Parkway).

In 1988, BHS interviewed one of M.C. Illions’ sons: Bernard Joseph “Barney” Illions (1901-1988).  In this interview Barney Illions remembers when Dreamland amusement park burned down and many of Bostock’s animals perished.  He describes how his father started working with Charles Looff and the influence M.C. had on other master carvers of the time like W.F. Mangels, Carmel, Stein & Goldstein.  Barney describes in wonderful and loving detail the process of creating beautiful carousel horses.  Many of Illions’ horses are now sought after collectors items.

For more about the carousels of Coney Island check out the Flying Horses Catalog and Painted Ponies.

Listen to Barney Illions’ full interview here

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Thank you to Andy Hollenhorst for all his help researching and cataloging BHS’s Coney Island oral histories.

Mangels-Illions Carousel courtest of liangjinjiang on Flickr

Mangels-Illions Carousel courtest of liangjinjiang on Flickr